There’s a lot of simple things I want to learn. Like how does memory work, what different kind of proteins exist, what impact did technology (fire, electricity, printing press, computers) have on society, how the stock market works, and so on.

Second Glance is an attempt to take another look, to move beyond the first, cursory glance at something and get a slightly deeper and more nuanced perspective on things.

Why do I care to learn these things? I think it’s cause I walk around feeling handicapped, not knowing so many things that I ought to know. And then I resort to skimming Reddit or Twitter to form my personal opinion on things. Both of these sources have a lot of incorrect information and hype, and it’s embarrassing to let them have such a big influence on me.

How much knowledge do I have? Often I produce better output than my peers, because I’m obsessive about doing good work. But when it comes to general knowledge, I feel like I know very little. I routinely run into people way more knowledgeable than me. But trying to quantify how much I know is pointless. Irrespective of where I stand now, the only important thing is how much further I can go, and that’s what this is about.

Why don’t I just learn by myself? Why do I need to share what I learn with the world? There’s a bunch of reasons:

1. To stay accountable to write something often
2. To produce higher quality output than if I was just journaling in my notebook
3. To prevent getting lonely by sharing writings with friends
4. To gain a small win from producing something tangible

Through school and college, we had a community to learn things with. In adult life, we are alone in this pursuit. Casual blogs feel like a humble attempt to learn alongside others.

What are the biggest risks I foresee in being successful with this experiment?

1. Getting busy with my full-time job
2. Feeling like what I’m writing about is too trivial / common knowledge / not interesting enough